[31]. The fullest accounts of the temple, high-priests and mode of worship are those of the Natchez Indians, by Father Charlevoix in his Voyage to America, II, 192 (1766); also in French, Hist. Collection Louisiana, 166, 170; Du Pratz, Hist. La., III, 21, and English ed. 337. Lord Kingsborough quotes De Buisson on the sanctum sanctorum as corroboration of Adair.
[32]. Of all the greater leaders of the Cherokees, Old Hop, as to his record, most eludes a researcher. Especially is this true of date of birth, rise to the place of emperor and date of death. Drake in his Aboriginal Races, 367, and Ramsey in his Annals of Tennessee, 85, confuse him with Oconostota. His Indian name is variously spelled by the English in an effort to produce the gutturals in Kanegwati: Cunnicatogue, Canacackte, Concauchto, Connocotte, Connecorte, Conogotocke. At times such spellings are followed by the description Old Hop, or the name of his town, Chota. He was in power during the administrations of Govs. James Glen in South Carolina and Robert Dinwiddie in Virginia. In August, 1754, he seems not to have been emperor, since Gov. Dinwiddie then wrote: “I always (till now) understood the Emperor was their Chief Man. If Old Hop is a greater man, I shall hereafter notice him as such.” Papers, II, 267. To the same effect, 5 Indian Book, p. 6 at Columbia (letter of Sept. 1754 signed by both the “Emperor” and “Old Hop”). He was reported as dead in a dispatch of January 6, 1760, relating to the siege of ill-fated Fort Loudoun on Little Tennessee. Hamer, Fort Loudoun, 31.
[33]. Called by the English “Little Carpenter”; he was the greatest chief in state-craft ever produced by the Cherokees. While a youth he accompanied Sir Alexander Cuming to England, in 1730, and the impression he there received of the power of Great Britain had much to do with his friendly attitude towards the English and against the French. At that time his name was Unwanequa (Onconecaw in South Carolina records) but changed, according to Cherokee custom, to Chuconnunta, and later to Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter). Timberlake (1762) speaking of the two factions, says that he had a large faction of the Cherokees with him since “policy and art are the greatest steps to power.” Williams, Memoirs, 95. In 1757, he was addressed by Dinwiddie as second in power to Old Hop, and he urged that governor to send him again to England. His activities were too numerous to be incorporated in a footnote. He was born in what is now East Tennessee on the Big Island of the French Broad River (Sevier’s Island) which one of the war-trails of the Cherokees passed. He died about 1782, “about the termination, or a little after, of the American War” or the Revolution. He was small of stature, slender and of delicate frame—so described by two writers who came in contact with him: Williams, Wm. Tatham, Wataugan, 21; Bartram, Travels, 362. Felix Walker, once a Wataugan and later a member of Congress from North Carolina, describes his appearance in 1775: “He was said to be about ninety years of age; a very small man, and so lean and light-habited that I scarcely believe he would have exceeded more in weight than a pound for each year of his life. He was marked with two large scares or scarfs on each cheek. He was the most celebrated and influential Indian among all the tribes then known; considered as the Solon of his day.” Walker saw the Little Carpenter at the Henderson-Cherokee treaty, at Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga in March, 1775. The only portrait of him in existence is reproduced in Williams, Early Travels in the Tennessee Country.
[34]. For description and illustration: Jones, Antiquities of the Southern Indians, 516; Thruston, Antiquities of Tennessee, 321, 331; Harrington, Cherokee and Earlier Remains on Upper Tennessee River, 246, 286; Moore, Aboriginal Sites on Tennessee River, 381, et seq., and Jones, Explorations of Aboriginal Remains of Tennessee, 136.
[35]. Lord Kingsborough says that Don Jose Cortes is in accord in his Memorias; and seeks to reenforce the argument by citing Deut., 18th Chapter.
[36]. Myths of a jewel from serpents were common among the American Indians. Talismanic stones were carefully kept and reverently regarded. See Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 73, 75, and Mooney, Myths, 459.
[37]. The John Howard Payne MSS. treat of the holy fire amply: “The most active and efficient agent appointed by the Sun to take care of mankind was supposed to be the fire. When, therefore, very special favor was needed, it was made known to Fire, accompanied by an offering. It was considered as an immediate being nearest the Sun and received homage from the Cherokees as the same element did from the Eastern Magi.... The altar in the center of the national heptagon was constructed of a conical shape, of fresh earth. A circle was drawn around the top to receive the fire of sacrifice. Upon this was laid, ready for use, the inner bark of seven kinds of trees. This bark was carefully chosen from the east side of the trees, and was clear and free of blemish.... Early in the morning seven persons who were commissioned to kindle the fire commenced their operations.... A round hole being made in a block of wood, a small quantity of dry golden-rod weed was placed in it. A stick, the end of which just fitted the opening, was whirled rapidly until the weed took fire.” Buttrick, for many years a missionary among the Cherokees, in Tennessee and after their removal, says the “new fire” was made by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together with dry golden-rod between them. Antiquities, 9. Buttrick further says golden-rod was in Cherokee anagestaluga or light-bearer; and, of the fire, that it was required that “no torch be lighted by it, nor a coal taken from it for common use.”
[38]. Kingsborough adds that the Jews believed that divination did not fall exclusively to men, citing the instance of Huldah, II Kings, Chapter 22, also, Nehem. V: 14.
[39]. Adair here describes the thanksgiving ceremonial, the Green Corn Dance, called the busk by the Creeks (puskita or boosketau). Yet fuller accounts by John Howard Payne, the poet, who was among the Cherokees, (1835) may be found. He made observations and wrote voluminously of their festivals. Payne MSS. Ayers Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago. Payne contributed an article to Continental Monthly (New York, 1862) on the Green Corn Dance, in which it is set forth that it is the second of the six great festivals of the year, held when the young corn first becomes fit to eat; and that “at every green corn festival the sacred square is strewn with soil yet untrodden.” Squier, in his Serpent Symbol, 67, drawing on the Payne MSS., quotes the poet as entertaining the view that the festival was a survival of the ancient solar worship of the Cherokees. The other account referred to is by Benjamin Hawkins in his Sketch of the Creek Country, 75, reproduced in Bartram’s Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians, 67, and in Hodge’s Handbook, I, 176. See Bartram’s own lively account in Travels, 448, 507, and Timberlake’s in Memoirs, 64 (Williams edition) 88. A good description based on Hawkins and Swan (Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, V, 267) appears in Gatschet, Migration Legend of the Creeks, 177 et seq. Gatschet concludes with the observation: “Many analogies can be traced with well-known customs among the Aztecs and Maya Indians.” For the Green Corn Dance of the Iroquois, kinsmen of the Cherokees, see Morgan, League of the Iroquois, I, 176, 190. Generally, Jones, Antiquities of Southern Indians, 99 et seq.
[40]. West Florida, or the present South Mississippi.